Soft tissue injuries are injuries to any type of body tissue other than bone and teeth. They include: tears, such as ligament sprains and muscular strains. However, you also need to know about simple injuries like a skin abrasion or a blister. 

These injuries all stimulate the same inflammatory response form the body, which can result in further damage if not controlled through the application of RICER (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, Referral). The RICER treatment of a soft tissue injury aims to decrease inflammation, allowing enough inflammation to repair the injured tissue, but not so much as to cause further soft tissue damage.

In addition to this, you should know how to treat skin injuries (abrasions, contusions, blisters etc). The essential goal of such treatment is to stop blood loss. The management of soft tissue injuries has been given its own page in order to fully address the management of these injuries.

Students learn about:

• soft tissue injuries
  • tears, sprains, contusions
  • skin abrasions, lacerations, blisters
  • inflammatory response

Students learn to:

• manage soft tissue injuries:
  • RICER (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, Referral)
  • immediate treatment of skin injuries